Replacing Onkyo 875 Amp and Pioneer PDP-5080XD

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Hello All

I'm looking to replace my old Onkyo 875 that I've had for 10 years to something newer now ( also looking at changing my plasma too )

I'm looking at something that will allow Atmos etc as i will be looking to add the small up firing Atmos speakers on the top of my front floor standers.

I've looked around online not listened to anything yet but i do like the look of the Denon AVRX3400 or the Yamaha RXA870 .

Any other one's i should be looking at ?

With regards to my Pioneer PDP-5080XD I've had for 10 years too but I bought in May a 40" Samsung UE40MU6120 for the extension and to be honest i was blown away how good the picture was on it with a direct feed from sky using a HDMI splitter.

So now I've decided it would be nice to have smart TV and to use 4K in the main room and replace my beloved pioneer.

Do like the look of the OLED and looked so far at these :-

LG OLED65B7V £1899
LG OLED65B8S £2499
Panasonic TX65EZ952B £2599

Is there really a huge difference from the LG OLED65B7V to the other 2 for the price ?
Don't want any motion blur especially on sport and football mostly.

I will be sitting about 3 meters away also and wall mounted.

Any advice and input regarding either items would be great please

Thank you.
 
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I replaced a 10 year old Onkyo 875 last year with a Yamaha Aventage RX-A3060, great sound IMO. Atmos capable and brimming with way more features than I'll ever use but I loved the sound when demoed, so bought one. Anecdotally, I find the sound to be much warmer than the Onkyo it replaced. I think the 3060 is now EOL (you might still find stock with some googling) and has been replaced by the 3070, which is essentially the same amp but with a few extra tweaks/improvements.
 
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Re: AVRX2500H
Thanks will take alook at that one .

The 2500 isn't anything like as potent as the Onkyo 875.

If you separate each receiver in to the pre-amp and power-amp sections, then newer receivers (even at £300) are going to have more relevant features to today's world. That doesn't mean to say they're automatically going to sound better. It just means there are more bells and whistles.

Compare the power amp sections though and its a very different story.

As good as the Denon is, it's still a £500 RRP AV receiver. The maximum power consumption at the mains is 500W. Knock off 10% for heat loss and running the preamp features means you're left with 450W to split across 7 speakers, so a ball park of 65W/ch when everything is swinging.

The Onkyo eats 870W from the mains. Less 10% again gives us 780W. Split over 7 speakers we get 110W per channel. That's a big difference, and it's why the bigger Onkyos and Denons and Pioneers and Yamahas etc were all in the £1000+ category. The closest thing in Denon's current range is the £1500 AVR-X6400 @ 900W mains consumption or the £2300 AVR-X6500. That's 115W/ch in 7.1 mode. However, it's an 11 channel amp so the cake gets divided in to smaller pieces: 75W per channel.

Everything from the AVR-X4400/4500 and above has pre-out sockets. That's useful because it means that an external power amp can be hooked up to drive the centre channel and/or front L&R. Since these three speakers consume the lion's share of the amp's power, lifting the burden means more juice for the remaining speakers. That's a decent win.
 
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Re: AVRX2500H


The 2500 isn't anything like as potent as the Onkyo 875.

If you separate each receiver in to the pre-amp and power-amp sections, then newer receivers (even at £300) are going to have more relevant features to today's world. That doesn't mean to say they're automatically going to sound better. It just means there are more bells and whistles.

Compare the power amp sections though and its a very different story.

As good as the Denon is, it's still a £500 RRP AV receiver. The maximum power consumption at the mains is 500W. Knock off 10% for heat loss and running the preamp features means you're left with 450W to split across 7 speakers, so a ball park of 65W/ch when everything is swinging.

The Onkyo eats 870W from the mains. Less 10% again gives us 780W. Split over 7 speakers we get 110W per channel. That's a big difference, and it's why the bigger Onkyos and Denons and Pioneers and Yamahas etc were all in the £1000+ category. The closest thing in Denon's current range is the £1500 AVR-X6400 @ 900W mains consumption or the £2300 AVR-X6500. That's 115W/ch in 7.1 mode. However, it's an 11 channel amp so the cake gets divided in to smaller pieces: 75W per channel.

Everything from the AVR-X4400/4500 and above has pre-out sockets. That's useful because it means that an external power amp can be hooked up to drive the centre channel and/or front L&R. Since these three speakers consume the lion's share of the amp's power, lifting the burden means more juice for the remaining speakers. That's a decent win.


Hi thanks for taking the time to post that cracking read.

Yeah I didn't think it would be as powerfully to be fair it's been playing up recently well about year on and off . I've had it for 10 years like the plasma and want to swap it all really now .

I'd say I don't really belt out the sound to loud ( wife moans about it :p ) So not sure how much I'll miss from the Onkyo other than it's radeon processor which I run everything through seems not many amps have the video processing now to clean up the picture ?

Thanks
 
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I recently went from an old onkyo606 with 5.1 and kuro to a denon 2400, lg c7 55" oled. Also got a couple PSB atmos speakers to sit on top of my old q acoustic 1030i floorstanders.
Very happy with it all! Pretty small room so don't need a huge amount to fill the room with sound. Nice to have all the modern AV features such as ARC and the colours on the oled with dolby vision content @ 4k are something. Atmos is superb once you've got everything setup. Be warned though - you'll be wanting to get rear upfiring after listening to some demo discs so maybe a 9 channel amp would be worthwhile looking at? (you'll probably want 11 after listening to that ;) )

Now keeping half an eye out for newer speakers although tbh not sure I'd be gaining a huge amount over the ones I've got. With the new 3000i q acoustics out the 3000 range are a very tempting price...
 
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I recently went from an old onkyo606 with 5.1 and kuro to a denon 2400, lg c7 55" oled. Also got a couple PSB atmos speakers to sit on top of my old q acoustic 1030i floorstanders.
Very happy with it all! Pretty small room so don't need a huge amount to fill the room with sound. Nice to have all the modern AV features such as ARC and the colours on the oled with dolby vision content @ 4k are something. Atmos is superb once you've got everything setup. Be warned though - you'll be wanting to get rear upfiring after listening to some demo discs so maybe a 9 channel amp would be worthwhile looking at? (you'll probably want 11 after listening to that ;) )

Now keeping half an eye out for newer speakers although tbh not sure I'd be gaining a huge amount over the ones I've got. With the new 3000i q acoustics out the 3000 range are a very tempting price...

Thanks for your reply yeah i've looked at the PSB atmos speakers myself . I already run 7.1 so want to add a pair of these on the fronts .Do like the look of the Yamaha RXA870 also going to go and test a few soon just got a few things on at the moment.

I assume there is extra sockets on the back of the amp for the atmos speakers ? looked at a couple online and didn't notice anything extra?

Thanks
 
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Thanks for your reply yeah i've looked at the PSB atmos speakers myself . I already run 7.1 so want to add a pair of these on the fronts .Do like the look of the Yamaha RXA870 also going to go and test a few soon just got a few things on at the moment.

I assume there is extra sockets on the back of the amp for the atmos speakers ? looked at a couple online and didn't notice anything extra?

Thanks

They're just normal speakers using the same ports as the others - I think atmos av receivers can switch the channels around and you tell it at setup which you want it to be. So a 7 channel av will allow you to stick two forward atmos in but replacing the 2 rear channels giving you 5.1.2. If you want atmos plus your current 7.1 you'll need a 9 channel receiver. That'll let you have 7.1.2 or 5.1.4 if you again forgo your rears and have 4 atmos speakers.
 
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They're just normal speakers using the same ports as the others - I think atmos av receivers can switch the channels around and you tell it at setup which you want it to be. So a 7 channel av will allow you to stick two forward atmos in but replacing the 2 rear channels giving you 5.1.2. If you want atmos plus your current 7.1 you'll need a 9 channel receiver. That'll let you have 7.1.2 or 5.1.4 if you again forgo your rears and have 4 atmos speakers.


Thanks for your reply i'd need a 9 channel receiver then don't want to lose my other speakers .

Thank you.
 
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Been looking at the Pioneer VSX-LX303 has 170W per channel and does 7.2.2

Can get a £100 trad ein for my onkyo 875 aswell so would come in at £699.
Has any

Going to be getting a Nivida Sheild too as my dune player base is struggling thats 10 years old too.
 
Soldato
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No way 170w X 7

Oh dear 1 channel driven 1% thd, 6 ohm 1khz

Lol

Ewith 100% amp efficiency and AV amp using no other power for scaling and decoding it's 84w X 7

So it'll be lower than that.
 
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No way 170w X 7

Oh dear 1 channel driven 1% thd, 6 ohm 1khz

Lol

Ewith 100% amp efficiency and AV amp using no other power for scaling and decoding it's 84w X 7

So it'll be lower than that.


So why they advertising its 170w if it’s not ?
Surely that’s false advertising then ?
To be fair it would still be plenty loud enough in my room anyway I’d think
 
Soldato
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Yes it is. Real output probably 65-75w per channel.

The amps I use are 200w per channel, all channels driven, 0.03% thd into 8 ohm, 20-20khz FTC.

Or 300w same ratings. Power usage in the kW.
 
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So why they advertising its 170w if it’s not ?
Surely that’s false advertising then ?
To be fair it would still be plenty loud enough in my room anyway I’d think

They're presenting the facts in a certain way that then makes you presume they mean something else.

You know it's a 9 channel receiver, right? So now you're primed with '9' in your head. Then they tell you it's 170W/ch followed by some technical mumbo-jumbo about kHz and percentages which you don't really take in because you've just read the big fat Watts figure....1-7-0.

Human nature kicks in.... Now you're thinking "For £700, I can get 9 x 170W " Even if you don't work out the exact figure, you know in your gut it's a lot of Watts. It's more than you have with the Onkyo, but the Pioneer is almost half the price. Now you're doing the Snoopy dance.

But let's just rewind a little an look at what's actually been said by Pioneer...

From their pdf spec sheet: 170 W/ch (6 ohms, 1 kHz, THD 1 %, 1ch Driven)

It's 170W/ch.....
1 channel driven ..... not all of them together, but only one channel at a time. Measuring just one channel at a time means that all the available power from the transformer is available to feed that single set of speaker connections rather than being spread across 5 or 7 or 9 or 11 channels.

Your next question would be then "If all the power is available, then why isn't the power output measured at 700+ Watts for that one channel?" The answer is it's limited by the current that each channel's output transistors can deliver. This is why why we pay close attention to speaker Ohms ratings. Speakers suck current from amplifiers. The lower the Ohms rating the more they try to gobble up; so if the amp is designed for an 8 ohm load, but the speaker is 4 Ohms, then there's the potential for the speaker to cause the output transistors to blow.


Then there's the technobabble "6 ohms, 1 kHz, THD 1%"

Measuring at 6 Ohms rather than 8 inflates the power figure by 33%. If we work that back then we get from 170W/ch down to 127.5W/ch. That's still a very respectable figure, but we aren't finished yet.

Next there's this '1 kHz' thing. They're measuring a a single test tone rather than with with something that represents the whole music spectrum. This one is smoke and mirrors to most consumers. Very few people without a technical background understand understand the significance of this. Measuring at 1 kHz is where the amp is consuming the least amount of mains power energy and producing the most at the chosen speaker output. In simple terms, we get a much bigger number than measuring at 20 Hz~20 kHz. How much bigger depends to a degree on the amp, but in rough figures it's a boost of 40%.

Working back again we go from 127.5W down to 91W

Finally, we finish off with 1% THD thing. THD is a measure of distortion in the signal. The closer the amp is to its maximum output then the higher the distortion figure. Your Onkyo was measured at 0.05% THD, and that was at 8 Ohms with 2 channels driven with a 20 Hz~20 kHz signal, so everything stacked against it. Yet it still managed to put in a performance of 130W/ch for each of the two channels.

It's debatable, but you'll find that where the amps are measured more honestly, a figure of 0.1% THD isn't uncommon. Comparing then 0.1% and 1% gives a boost to the measured wattage of around 25-35%. If we go for the middle at 30%, then our 91W worked back becomes 70W.


Do you remember I gave you a rough rule of thumb way of working out the real power for any AV receiver? It was mains consumption, then knock off 10%, then divide by the number of channels. Well, the Pioneer has a max power consumption of 760W. Take away 10% (76W) leaves is 684W. Divide that by 9 and we get 76W per channel. That's pretty close to the 70W I predicted, and close enough in real terms that you wouldn't hear any difference between 70 and 76W.


Use the rough rule of thumb. It works. It'll help you see through the marketing B.S.
 
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This. Though I use something a bit similar when I judge power in an amp/receiver. Figure of 8 lead = not going to be a lot for an AV receiver. Stereo could be enough. Kettle lead = may well do the job required for AV Receiver, depends on volume levels. Stereo = yep in most cases.
 
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Coming back to this as i'm still looking found a shop that selling a Denon AVR-X4400H AV Receiver for £820 from £1499 Is it a decent deal ?


Thanks
 
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The pricing is because there's a model change. The 4400H and its replacement - the 4500H - are in the market at the same time. The 4500H has some minor tweaks, and the retail price is up at £1,500. Denon is discounting the remaining 4400H stock through its dealer network, so yes, I'd say it's a very good deal.

In 8-10 months time when the (presumably named) 4600H replaces the 4500H then there might be a similar price reduction again, it just depends how many £1,500 amps Denon UK are still sitting on and what the competing manufacturers are up to.

If you felt the need for more power, the 4400H has pre-out sockets for all channels. Adding a stereo or a 3-channel amp for the front sound stage would be a sensible upgrade.

Some sites are reporting the 4400H as no longer available, so unless you spot something else equivalent then you might want to get your skates on.
 
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The pricing is because there's a model change. The 4400H and its replacement - the 4500H - are in the market at the same time. The 4500H has some minor tweaks, and the retail price is up at £1,500. Denon is discounting the remaining 4400H stock through its dealer network, so yes, I'd say it's a very good deal.

In 8-10 months time when the (presumably named) 4600H replaces the 4500H then there might be a similar price reduction again, it just depends how many £1,500 amps Denon UK are still sitting on and what the competing manufacturers are up to.

If you felt the need for more power, the 4400H has pre-out sockets for all channels. Adding a stereo or a 3-channel amp for the front sound stage would be a sensible upgrade.

Some sites are reporting the 4400H as no longer available, so unless you spot something else equivalent then you might want to get your skates on.

Thank you for your detailed reply I thought it was a good deal myself .

I’m planning on running to Atmos speakers on top of my front speakers so need this 9.2 set up .

I assume it does video upscaling couldn’t see in the spec sheet, but i assume it must do ?

One good thing my I Onkyo did was video processing with the radoen process it had in it .
 
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